MUSCAT, 30 July 2006 — Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel), Oman’s telecom giant and Pakistan’s Transworld Associates have launched a 900-km submarine fiber-optics cable project to forge closer telecom links between the two countries.
The cable will link Pakistan with Oman and allow for the exchange of telecommunications activity between Pakistan and Oman. The project will also link Pakistan and the whole world through the main point in Muscat.
A direct video contact was made between Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the Chief Executive Officer of Omantel, Mohammed ibn Ali Al-Wohaibi, in Karachi, and Oman Mobile Managing Director Amer ibn Awad Al-Rawas in Muscat.
Omantel board Chairman Saud ibn Nasser Al-Shukaily said that the project would enable Omantel to sell broadband services to the Pakistani company. It would expand the company’s subscriber base to include regional and world countries, companies and institutions, he added.
Al-Wohaibi said that such projects would contribute to expanding Omantel’s local and foreign investments and diversifying its revenue sources. He added that this project allows for the transmission and exchange of international telecommunications and Internet services. This, in turn, would enable telecommunications companies to provide the best of their high-quality services to their subscribers, he said.
It is worth noting that Omantel concluded a 15-year agreement with the Pakistani Transworld Associates Company in July 2005 that grants the Pakistani Company the right to use Omatel’s Seeb station as a land point for linking the present and future international cables in Oman.
Oman constitutes a main station for four submarine fiber-optic cables that have recently arrived at the wilayat of Seeb in Muscat and the wilayat of Khasab in Musandam. These cables allow for the exchange of international telecommunications activity in the Gulf region, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Europe and the Americas. The first submarine cable arrived in Seeb in mid-August 2005 and was connected to Seeb Exchange, and then it was extended through the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean to India.
The second cable was extended in October 2005 through the Gulf of Oman to the wilayat of Khasab and the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Iran.
The third cable had earlier arrived at the shores of the wilayat of Seeb from the city of Bandar Abbas in Iran.
